The True Story of True Crime YouTube Channels with Stephanie Harlowe: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 234
“It’s not a story. It’s real life. It really happened. There’s victims here.”
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Welcome to another YouTube Power Hour First! I’m thrilled to have my first true crime YouTuber on the show! Stephanie Harlowe has the reputation for having some of the most well-researched and thought-out true crime videos on YouTube, putting a great emphasis on leaving the viewer with no questions about the case. Since gaining a following on YouTube, Stephanie has been featured on Investigation Discovery’s The Missing Pieces. It is her goal to give a voice to the voiceless, and raise awareness about true crime cases both large and small. Stephanie’s channel has roughly 325k subscribers and 45 million views.
Stephanie Harlowe started her YouTube channel after the birth of her third child with the ultimate goal in mind to be able to work from home. All of the various side hustles she tried just weren’t enough, so she started a beauty and skincare channel on YouTube. But after 7 months in a saturated niche, she wasn’t passionate about the content she was creating, and she wasn’t growing. So she started thinking about her strengths and interests, one of which was history and true crime. What started off as a video here and there turned into a full pivot, and many of her viewers stuck around. Who knew that beauty and true crime overlapped so much? Stephanie did not grow up in the age of YouTube, but she found herself getting hooked on other true crime YouTubers and was always wanting to know more… always yearning for what happened next in the story. She often never felt closure and ended up researching the loose ends on her own. She vowed not to do that to her audience, and that’s why she creates her videos in multiple parts so that her viewers would feel like they didn’t yearn for anything, and that they knew everything about the case.
“What is the audience you’re going for looking for?”
Stephanie spends about a week and a half-two weeks and countless hours researching a single case, and then spends upwards of 3 hours just to record a single video, and her video topics run the wide gamut of murders, serial killers, cults, dark history, and more of the macabre. Despite all the work she puts in, YouTube doesn’t like to monetize her channel, and only about 50% of her videos make the cut to be monetized. Because she never knows whether or not she will be monetized, she has multiple streams of revenue, including a great group of sponsors, a merch line, and a Patreon. Stephanie is picky about who she chooses to work with, and rarely takes on new sponsors, and only after she has thoroughly researched the brand. Her Patreon subscribers are her ride-or-die, true fans, and they help her generate her content. Most of all, Stephanie’s goal is to ensure that the victims of these crimes are the center of the stories. So often we focus on the killer or perpetrator and not enough on the victims. Stephanie thoroughly researches the victims’ lives so that she can truly do justice to them as she tells their stories.
“I want to make everybody listening or watching feel as if this victim was their sister, their mother, their friend, their brother, their father, their son, their daughter. I want these people to have a really vivid picture of who this victim was.”
3 Key Interview Takeaways
- Be true to yourself. Stephanie started her channel doing beauty and skincare, but something just wasn’t right. Something just wasn’t clicking. It wasn’t until she honed in on her passion of history and true crime that she truly found a love for her channel. Her passion for the stories she tells drives her to put in so many hours of work.
- Have multiple streams of income. Because of Stephanie’s controversial video topics, YouTube doesn’t always monetize her, but she clearly deserves to be paid for the hours upon hours of work she does in her channel. Having multiple streams of income is an insurance policy for when YouTube doesn’t favor your videos or your channel.
- Know your viewers. Luckily, Stephanie’s Patreon patrons act as her sounding board and idea generators, helping her generate her content and decide which stories to tell. She also reads her comment section, interacts with her viewers, and uses their comments to guide her content decisions. Know your audience, know what they want, and then make that.
Mentioned in the Episode:
CHRIS WATTS: AUTOPSY RESULTS REVEALED
Connect with Stephanie
Stephanie Harlowe on Instagram
Resources
Add your name to the Zero to Influence YouTube Bootcamp waitlist so you are notified when space becomes available!
Watch my replay of my FREE Zero to 100k Subscribers Masterclass
FREE GUIDES:
Creating Content During Crisis: How to Create Impactful Content During COVID-19 Pandemic
Getting Started on YouTube: YouTube Niche Workbook
How to get onto PR lists and receive a TON of free product even if you have a small following: PR List
YOUTUBE OPTIMIZATION PLUG-IN I RECOMMEND
TubeBuddy [Use the code ErikasBuddy to get 20% off]
MY FAVORITE BUSINESS TOOLS
Course Creation: Looking to create a course? Kajabi is the BEST platform hands down. I use this for my course after extensive research on all the other platforms.
Live Calls and Interviews: I use Ecamm for my podcast interviews, both audio and for YouTube that you see here on YouTube. It makes it super easy to share my screen and create the split-screen with my guest. I’m not super techie and this software is really easy to use!
Webinars and Live calls: I use Zoom.us for my group coaching calls in my private membership group for female YouTube creators. It’s also the software I use to record my Road to 100k YouTube Subscribers Masterclass!
THE BEST YOUTUBE/PODCASTING EQUIPMENT
After interviewing HUNDREDS of successful YouTube creators, these are the pieces of equipment that hands down get mentioned time and time again. You can’t go wrong with anything on this list!
- 4k Camera: Great for starting out and vlogging
- Lens: This lens is recommended highly by many of my podcast guests, it gives the blurry “YouTuber” background look.
- Audio: If you want to upgrade your set-up, audio should be one of the first investments (after a good camera). This microphone is unanimously the favorite amongst my podcast guests.
- Podcast/Voiceover Microphone: If you are looking for a great microphone for a podcast or video voiceover, this is it! This is the one that you see in all of my videos and the one I’ve recorded my podcast on for years.
- Webcam: For my interviews, that you see in my videos, this is the webcam that I use. Super inexpensive and easy to set up!
- Inexpensive Lighting Kit: Need to pick up some lights but don’t want to spend a ton? This is a great set that will get you started and help improve the look of your videos.
- Ring light: Looking for that beauty look? Invest in a ring light! This is an inexpensive light that does that trick!
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Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
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**Disclaimers: all opinions are my own, sponsors are acknowledged. Links in the description are typically affiliate links that let you help support the podcast at no extra cost.
